


Braids

by rustandstardust



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series, Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustandstardust/pseuds/rustandstardust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the Yeuls like braiding Caius's hair, though it's different for each one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Braids

Caius supposes that this is how traditions manifest; unknowingly, slowly, creeping up on you like a hunter to prey. An act that becomes so _normal_ it’s routine, grown to the point where it’s coveted, appreciated, sought out: he supposes that’s what it is at this point, when realization hits him like a tidal wave as he sees Yeul’s third cycle of death and rebirth.

(In the growing unease and sadness that’s engulfing him, eating at him, corroding and destructive in his heart, decaying like flesh in the wake of a poison-tipped arrow, he searches for these small shards of happiness to hold onto, these small traditions he didn’t realize that they had.)

They are all different, these Yeuls he’s sworn to protect, but there is one thing they have in common; one interest, one joy, and that happens to be...braiding their Guardian’s hair. He’s puzzled; of all the small joys to choose from, she chooses the most mundane of activities, the most unimportant and irrelevant to sometimes _insist_ upon.

The first Yeul he ever knows is 12 when he meets her, elegant and ethereal upon her throne in the heart of Paddra. He’s heard the legends, knows full well that it was in Etro’s image that the jewel of the Farseers was created but the moment she sees him and graces him with a smile he doubts the possibility that anything could better exemplify divinity. He knows her before he is her Guardian, as the most celebrated hunter of the tribe he is allowed small moments with the seeress, tiny snippets when time is irrelevant as long as he’s beside her. Though neither of them are talkative, he loves nothing more than those stolen seconds, moments when her Guardian relaxes an iron grip and their hands link together across the small table.

With this Yeul, she braids his hair for appearances. He is a warrior; there are songs of trials overcome and stories extolling his courage, and with a slew of challenges overcome and enemies defeated, the charms and trinkets denoting his accomplishments are many, cascading in a waterfall down beside his face. Chiming in the wind, clinking against one another when he turns to look at her, his Yeul, his only. When he kills her Guardian (a weak, sniveling man; he was never fit to serve her) she makes him a new charm, one that matches the beads she wears around her frail wrist twined up around her middle finger and as she braids it into his hair, she smiles. “I prefer you to my old Guardian,” she murmurs as she kneels behind him and works each token into a braid, untangling the knots and weaving the spoils of his victories in seamlessly. She doesn’t know that his greatest accomplishment is no glass bead, no shining crystal bauble. (It’s her.)

When they flee Paddra in the wake of the vision that brings tears to the corners of her eyes, there are no more trinkets, no more tokens of bravery and accomplishments. They travel lightly, with small packs on their backs, weapons and worry, and in the sea of monsters they fight through, his hair is matted and tangled and two feathers are gone from his headband and one from his belt and one of them is what _she_ made. He regrets losing it, curses himself for his carelessness but when her hand rests on his arm feather-light, everything is alright.

(Eventually, when he uses that Yeul, he wants to tear all the ornaments away and cast them into a fire where he doesn’t have to look at them but her voice calls out to him on the wind, a soft _I’ll be back, Caius_ , and so he keeps them, tries clumsily to braid his own hair but his fingers are nothing like hers and the braids are uneven, unsightly thick. He misses her.)

The next Yeul braids his hair because it calms her down, oddly enough. She is young, five years old when he finds her, reborn and ostracized because she’s different; she is quiet, unsociable, timid. She’s prone to worry, to bouts of anxiety, to fear of the dark and nervousness in large groups. All she wants to do when he finds her (takes her away from the unworthy couple trying to raise her) is bury her head in his chest and wait until the fear abates and so he lets her. She’s still a child, twining strands of his hair around thin fingers (occasionally, her thumb ends up in her mouth and when her hand goes slack when she falls asleep his hair is unpleasantly damp) and smiling serenely. She crinkles her nose when he leans down to kiss her goodnight, says his hair tickles her face (“Finer than chocobo feathers, but still makes me sneeze,” she informs) and when she sits on his lap the next morning she braids it, runs her fingers along the ends of the strands, judging length, separating them gently and weaving them into braids. He still has a few of his trinkets, remnants of an age he’s not forgotten and there’s never been anything cuter than her smile as she asks him how he earned them all, which monster he felled, which warrior he defeated.

With some Yeuls, it is different, it is _more_. It’s not comfort or sweetness, but something more mature; her fingers are seeking to touch him in ways they haven’t before, a desire sleeping just below the surface to touch every inch of him. Her fingers are slow as they run through his hair and her nails are gentle as they scratch along his scalp and though he is not so easily affected by such physical things, the juxtaposition is nice, the change in her manner when the corners of her lips quirk up as she tugs gently is playful and it gets to him in ways he never considered. This Yeul is older, more mature, occasionally more coquettish than she realizes (or maybe just as much) and more often than not, she’s teasing him when she braids his hair. The feel of her fingers running through his hair is accompanied by her thin legs straddling his waist, the swell of her soft, small breasts pressing against his chest and she kisses the corners of his lips, whispers “I’m glad I have you, Caius,” and he’s sure she knows exactly what her words do to him, how his name sounds breathed out like a secret. When he covers her lips with his own her fingers tighten in his hair and the small braids run over her fingers like thin, fine rope.


End file.
